Creative Retreats in Italy
The Amphitheater of Scolacium on the Ionian Coast in Calabria, just outside of the city of Catanzaro.
“Nothing can be compared to the new life that the discovery of another country provides for a thoughtful person. Although I am still the same, I believe to have changed to the bones.”
J. W. von Goethe, Italian Journey
The magic of Italy has been famous for centuries throughout the world.
Whether you are wanting to explore its amazing art, exquisite cuisine, geographical beauty, or opportunities for quality time at the beach, a visit to Italy will leave you with memories for a lifetime.
Calabria, the very tip of the toe of the Italian Peninsula, is a less explored area, and contains some incredible treasures, all the more beautiful because they are largely unknown throughout the rest of the country and the world.
I lived here for many years, and have been returning the last few years for extended stays, where I enjoy time to reconnect with my old friends, rest, recharge, eat, swim and walk…and also create a special space to devote to my creative endeavors.
In years past I offered experiences focused on more tourism type activities; going forward I have decided to shift my focus and offer more low key experiences for those who are wanting to slow down, connect with themselves, nature and an area overflowing with history.
Creative Retreats in the Gulf of Squillace
Full Immersion Intercultural Experiences while Taking Time for Yourself and your Art – even if that art is … you!
Personal growth and evolution through rest, geographical beauty, beach time along the Mediterranean (depending on the season), good food, and an easy-going encounter with another cultural reality
Calabria is the most southern region in Italy – the very toe of the Italian “boot”.
Once home to wise kings such as the legendary King Italus, who developed one of the earliest forms of democracy and whose name was taken for the entire nation when it was formed in 1860, and famous Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras, today Calabria is a magical land, full of a kind of beauty that is less polished and obvious than the more famous areas in Italy, but is nonetheless just as inspiring.
By a strange series of events I ended up in Calabria for the first time in the summer of 1983. I was teaching in Milan, the bustling metropolis in the north, and since the schools closed for the summers, after my first visit I began spending summers there, enjoying the beaches and the blossoming friendships while playing music in the clubs along the Ionian coast.
After a couple years, I met my first husband and eventually moved there to live permanently. I married, had children, developed a teaching and music career, and eventually went back to school to become a counseling psychologist and Existential Personalistic Anthropologist. (Click here for more info about me).
My marriage did not last, but Calabria by then was home to me, and during my time there I had the great fortune to connect with a variety of people who became some of my most treasured friends and colleagues, and remain so to this day. I eventually gained citizenship due to my long residency, and it became my second homeland.
After 24 years in Italy I returned to live in Wisconsin in 2006 to help with my elderly parents in their last years. but my connection to Calabria remained a powerful one. As time has gone on, I have had the opportunity to return more regularly to Calabria, and reconnect with my old friends and the places I love so much.
I have always been fascinated by the incredible complexity of this region’s culture and vast history, traces of which remain scattered throughout the variegated natural landscape and within the towns perched strategically on the tops of the hillsides, built there to help protect the populace from the many different invading armies that have come through over the centuries. It is all so profoundly different from my own Scandinavian/Northern European heritage and my upbringing in the Great Lakes region in the United States, and yet, I have always felt deeply at home here.
I sense a profound inner resonance that is difficult to understand, or to describe in words, even after all these years.
This fascination has fueled countless hours of study (which culminated, in 2020, in a Bachelor’s degree in Italian Studies with an individual focus on Calabrian history), as well as many wonderful days spent exploring the towns and hamlets and historical and natural wonders that abound.
To say nothing, of course, of the delicious food and the gorgeous beaches, both of which are also abundant and varied, all throughout the region. With over 700 km of coastline, Calabria is a paradise for anyone who loves the sea, but it is also a wonderful place to hike in the hills and mountains that make up the interior. It has gained increasing popularity as a destination for longer treks, for example on the Kalabria Coast to Coast trail, that crosses from the Ionian sea on the eastern side, over the mountains to the Tyrrhenian sea on the west side.
I have always enjoyed sharing my deep love for and intimate knowledge of this beautiful place with friends and family. It is not as well known as the more northern areas of Italy but, but for precisely that reason, for me it holds an even more special kind of beauty. It is an area that has a long history of being raided by foreign invaders, and due to its impervious mountainous interior and its somewhat initially standoffish and fiercely proud and independent people, it has never had a reputation for being a particularly easy place to travel to. It is also not as organized and polished as the more northern regions, and its offerings for tourists are not as sophisticated. But although it can be fraught with inefficiency, and seem scruffy and unkempt, there is an authenticity that is often lost in areas more heavily developed by industrial society and by mass global tourism. And once you
If you are interested in coming to Calabria and having a unique, highly personalized intercultural experience, while spending focused, restful protected time on your creative pursuits, this just might be the right experience for you.
Contact me at martha@marthabw.com for more information regarding the 2026 season, and come back here to check for details as they develop.
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